Multicultural food festival proves a big hit

Stall-holders (from left) Marc Makoni, Becky Mbungua and Doreen Makoni with Marcus Mbungua (5 weeks) on her back, serving Zimbabwean food at the Clutha Culture Festival. Photo: Samuel White.
Stall-holders (from left) Marc Makoni, Becky Mbungua and Doreen Makoni with Marcus Mbungua (5 weeks) on her back, serving Zimbabwean food at the Clutha Culture Festival. Photo: Samuel White.
Despite rain and wind, stallholders and organisers alike are pleased with the amount of support shown by the Clutha community for this year's multicultural food festival.

The event, which featured 15 stalls of varying styles of food from around the globe, was held at the Cross Recreation Centre last Friday.

Stalls featured food from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, France, Chile, Zimbabwe, the United States and Mexico.

Clutha District Settlement Support chairwoman Chris Shaw said the community showed wonderful support for the event.

''It went remarkably well, in view of the weather conditions.''

The food sites were ''amazing'', she said.

There was plenty of food for everybody and none of the stallholders had much left at the end of the night.

Local school kapa haka and Filipino groups also entertained the crowd.

Stall-holder Doreen Makoni, of Balclutha, served Zimbabwean food with the help of her husband and Kenyan friend Becky Mbungua, who lives in Winton.

Mrs Makoni said she was very happy with the number of people who had turned out for the cultural event.

Normally she travelled to Invercargill for similar events where the ''big crowds'' were.

''We were not expecting this many ... I'm like 'oh my gosh, really?'''

Mrs Shaw said there was a chance the settlement support group would organise the event again next year.

''At this point you're always thinking 'thank goodness that's over', but I think with how successful it was then, yes, we would look at that again.''

Similar potluck multicultural celebrations have been held in Balclutha in the past and this was the first time the group had used the stall-holder format.

samuel.white@odt.co.nz

 

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